Riverdale – A Review in Retrospect

January 29, 2017January 29, 2017Leave a comment

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Of late, I’ve been very into murder mystery TV series. I just finished binge watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and Murdoch Mysteries on Netflix, so I didn’t imagine that I had room for another anachronistic mystery series in my life. Growing up, I had a passing knowledge of Archie comics, but they weren’t really my thing. I hadn’t felt an overwhelming need to check it out until I saw the early positive reviews for the show and I decided to give it a shot. These are my thoughts after seeing Riverdale:

If TV Tropes was a show, this would be it.

From the start, the show makes tongue-in-cheek references to TV teen drama tropes as characters make jokes about how everyone had magically transformed into hot teenagers over the summer, unrequited teenage love is explored via spin the bottle, and that girls kissing was last controversial in 1994. Riverdale clearly knows it’s in charted territory and is willing to embrace it, which is kind of refreshing.

The first scenes are a throwback to that of Twin Peaks, opening with the mysterious death of a prominent citizen’s teenage son in a small town full of dark secrets. The mystery is reminiscent of Lois Duncan novels, where the teenagers know more than they’re willing to let the adults know, and the shenanigans are about to commence.

The major players are laid out plainly from the start – Archie is the tortured jock/musician, Betty is the classic girl next door and her gay best friend is Kevin, with Veronica as the new girl in town causing a stir. While none were close to the deceased, his death is a stand in for the end of their lives as they were. Betty takes a risk to tell Archie that she’s in love with him, but he’s too caught up on the arrival of Veronica and trying to figure out his life choices to return the sentiment, splitting the lifelong friends apart. At the end of the episode, it’s revealed that the lurking background character Jughead was once Archie’s best friend as well, but for some reason they’re no longer close. Usually, it takes at least a dozen episodes for a teen drama to play out to this point of big reveals. The pilot manages to have the whole tangled mess unfold in less than 45 minutes. This sort of plot pacing works for a feature film, but the show will likely spend its entire first season trying to overcompensate for it.

Overall, the series is off to a fairly strong start. The actors have good chemistry and there’s enough room to build in plot twists that could undermine the seemingly straightforward whodunit aspect of the murder. It’s enough to make me tune in for next week’s edition anyway.

Photo credit: IMDb

The Artemis Complex

September 22, 2012September 23, 2012Leave a comment

I finally got to reading Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers (which is totally awesome and I’ll post more on that later) and I couldn’t help noticing the cover – another girl with a crossbow (Ismae actually has a larger arsenal than that). This year with the release of The Hunger Games and Brave, girls with bows and arrows have become the new chic for YA heroines. In my story, Aerie, my main character is a good archer to fit with the wind theme. So what’s the deal with this set up? Well, I think that as we move away from the virgin/whoring bitch dichotomy, we’ve set ourselves a new archetype – Artemis.

Even among writers, there’s a writing subtext and subconscious that we all play into – and the new ideal is the dark Greco-Roman goddess of the moon and the hunt. Greek mythology was one of my favorite topics in school, and my favorite goddess was Artemis. Of all the goddesses on Olympus, she was untouchable but unafraid of getting her hands dirty. I think that’s why so many types are modeled after her now. Artemis was the virgin goddess of taking names and kicking ass. While being a virgin isn’t a bad thing, it’s still overused as a hallmark of female noble character. We still end up with a new rendition of the virgin/whore song we’re trying to stop dancing to. Most of the girls who sleep around in romance novels are either raped, crazy/evil or turned into props. If a heroine has sex, then all of a sudden we’re in erotica. I find this particularly grating when I see it in sci-fi and epic fantasy. Can’t we have female main characters that aren’t oversexed or overly celibate? Why are we unable to walk lines in fiction that we seem to live along in modern Western culture?

While I love reading and playing with the Artemis archetype, I hope that it doesn’t become the next version of Mary Sue. There’s so much more that can be done with girls other than switching one type of bow for another. I think this is part of the reason why there are so many YA novels aimed at girls – there’s still a lot of coping being done in feminism. There’s so much conflict in the formation of identity – how much do we go by old rules and how much do we make up on our way? I adore Margaret Atwood’s books on how to these ideas conflict and that we find ourselves at this turmoil of what we see ourselves as and how much of the past we allow to guide our identity. Historical novels will always pose an issue because there is a precedent that can’t be ignored easily. My family came from a fairly conservative culture, and it was obvious to see first hand the amount of hypocrisy and self-flagellation over women’s roles of those espousing those views. I’m willing to bet it exists everywhere.

Admittedly, Artemis is a better turn than Hera, and I think we’re moving forward there’s still a long road ahead of us. Virgins aren’t bad people, nor does being a virgin make someone good. The same goes for women who have sex. There just needs to be a greater push away from the fear of female sexuality, especially among female writers. I say this as I look at “creative choices” that make me not want to let any of my family know about my writing. Recently, I was at a crossroads when deciding what direction to take the leading lady of Unhexed. I was basing my character off Rogue from The X-Men, and the idea of Magdalene asylums came up, which was a setting I wanted to explore for some time. I wanted her to experience living in one, but it was a place for whores — my character wasn’t a whore. And then this stupid voice in the back of my head asked, ‘Why not? She’s cursed and her life’s damn horrible and she’s a great character in spite of that.’ The more I thought about it, the more it gave so many different dimensions to her interactions with the other characters. Also, I remembered so many “other women” that have gotten bad treatment to be the foil for the heroines in romance novel and thought – this was my chance to look at how women who aren’t virgins or wives don’t get taken seriously, how easy it is to write someone off as a “whore.” It’s still an issue faced by most of the world today.

So girls with crossbows, take aim, you’ve still got a long fight ahead of you.

The 1-2-3s of Romance Heroes

July 12, 2011Leave a comment

Now for my breakdown of the guys for romantic book trilogies.

Book 1: Alpha Male aka “The Head Honcho” – Usually in romance trilogies, the first hero is the one of the highest social rank (alpha male of the pack, king/prince/duke/earl, oldest son, leader of whatever group the trilogy heroes are a part of, etc.). He’s the opposite of the more docile heroine he’ll be wooing – more domineering, inflated sense of his rank and never hesitant to put anyone in their place.

Book 2: Beta Male aka “The Second in Command” – This hero is usually the Head Honcho’s wingman or best friend. He’s often also the “good guy” in the trio or the one most honor bound and solemn as a monk. Well, I guess it does take a lot of patience to wear heroine #2 down.

Book 3: Omega Male aka “The Rebel Without a Cause” – The last story often involves the most rebellious, least mature of the trio. Often, he’s the one getting into bad scrapes but he manages to handle himself quite well until heroine gets involved. He is also a thwarted lover, of either one of the previous heroines or another girl from his adolescence or some years before the stories take place. Where he goes, trouble is likely to follow.

The 1-2-3s of Romance Heroines

July 8, 2011Leave a comment

I’ve started noticing a pattern when it comes to romance trilogy heroines, linked by male leads.

Book 1: The Outsider aka “Alice in Wonderland” – Heroine is brand new to the fold, be it a clan, coven, pack, planet, dimension, etc. She doesn’t know the workings of the world she’s gotten into, so many of her pitfalls come from her lack of knowledge, and a majority of her role is uncovering the hero’s realm. This heroine is more naive and docile.

Book 2: The Insider aka “The Warrior Princess” – This book’s heroine is often someone who is already part of the hero’s world, understands it but in some way has rejected it or doesn’t fit into it. Out of the three heroines, she’s often the most independent minded. She belongs to their world but isn’t necessary connected to the three main men until something happens to throw her into their path. This heroine often has an axe to grind and will fight the hero of this novel more than if they were in Book 1.

Book 3: The Outlier aka “The Girl Next Door” – Often the last heroine and hero are people who were lingering around in the first and second books, that you thought would hook up then but ended up with their own stories. Usually she’s connected to a large aspect of the previous novels – either as a sibling to one of the male leads or tied into a overarching plot or continuing subplot device in the series. The heroine for Book 3 is well acquainted with the world she’s in (can be either an insider or outsider), but doesn’t feel like she belongs because of something in the past. Book 3 heroines skew more toward knowing what they want but not how to get it.

How To Write A Good Cliche

April 2, 2011Leave a comment

It’s been a long time since I read a good book. A really good book. One that I have to read every word of, get completely wrapped up in and love to reread again and again. That’s how I felt about Anna and the French Kiss. It’s the well worn ‘girl gets sent to boarding school against her will and is a fish out of water’ plot set up. But it’s not just the story, but how well the story gets told that really makes it special.

1) When writing a cliche, the focus should be character based. The readers are familiar with the story, but creating a connection to the characters can make the story stand out. Example: Anna doesn’t really say she’s different or misunderstood, she focuses on who she is and what she does, which is what makes her unique and colorful. Sure, St. Clair is pretty much every wishy-washy guy with a troubled home life that girls seem to fall for, but he’s genuine in his friendship with her. It’s basically the same thing in real life.

2) It’s the little things that make a big difference. In the ‘fish out of water’ stories, the focus is often on feeling out of place in general. The book uses a different approach, with Anna going out and exploring those differences and turning it into her own world. The little things like what she does in her spare time, what she eats or what she studies are really fleshed out to truly recreate the experience of being in a new place and adapting.

3) Make the experience feel unique. Everyone and everyone’s story is unique, cliche as that sounds. In one branch of literary theory there are two types of plot – tragedy and comedy. In another, there is theorized to be only one – the main character is living his/her normal life when something occurs to take them out of their routine. Now think about how many stories there are in the world. Good, amazing, brilliantly original stories.

So go ahead, be cliche.

Character Descriptions that Need to be Dropped Like a Bad Habit

February 26, 2011Leave a comment

1) Stop describing the hero as a Greek statue or Adonis

2) Stop describing the hero as a cat or cat-like, which includes but isn’t limited to lynxes, lions, tigers or leopards

3) Stop describing the heroine as a kitten or mouse or mousy

4) Stop writing that the hero “would never force himself on a woman”

5) No more flaming red hair, there are far too many characters that remind me of Little Orphan Annie all grown up

6) I know even when you’re in love in real life, it’s easy to drop the “perfect” word around a lot, but it gets old fast on paper

How You Know You’re Reading a Cliche Romance

July 15, 2010Leave a comment

I’ve started noticing rather mundane patterns in romances. Overall, I like the quality of historical romance stories because they actually have decent plots, but after reading a couple I’ve noticed some things. They follow the same plot line.

1) The cover is always way more salacious than the actual content of the story based on sexual content.

2) The heroine is usually some kind of redhead (auburn, strawberry blonde, orange flames). The hero is tall, dark and handsome.

3) Her Prince Charming is an off-kilter high-ranking nobleman (frequently a duke, earl or viscount) who doesn’t like being a duke/earl/viscount and resents “society.”

4) Heroine is tomboyish, constantly getting into mischief and resents the role of being a lady. Yet somehow she is fine with the role when she accepts to marry the hero. She is also often an orphan or orphan-esque and acts childish for someone often over the age of twenty.

5) The heroine and her hero meet when he catches her at some type of criminal act or mischief.

6) Somehow hero and heroine don’t know each other, but they’re all over each other before exchanging names.

7) Hero and heroine get caught in a compromising situation due to trying to cover for heroine’s criminal activities, and to preserve her reputation the hero ends up telling people that they’re engaged.

8) Heroine gets into more mischief with something to do with political intrigue or property rights.

9) Hero moons over heroine and ways he will keep her safe and bed her, the conflicting notions make him crazy. This results in several steamy make-out sessions and/or they just screw each other’s brains out.

10) Heroine tries to prove that she doesn’t need hero and does something stupid.

11) Hero steps in and saves the day, but we pretend the heroine did most of it on her own.

12) Epilogue explaining happily ever after.

Erica Glass

Author of Stories and Coffee Addictions

Tag: cliches 101